Nexus D300 and Ikelite DS-125

Happily took posession of my Nexus D300 housing on Weds and tried to test fire my 2x DS125 strobes today with the camera sungly in its new home. I have 2x Ikelite to Nikonos cables, one connecting each strobe to the 2 strobe connector ports on the bulkhead. Strobes set to manual 1/4 power, D300 set to 1/250 @ f9 manual setting just to start with. Fire a shot..nothing from the strobes - camera just takes an ambient light shot.

The connectors are seated OK, the hotshoe adapter is connected, screwed down AND on the right way. I know that this setup wont have TTL capability (unless I get an adapter I guess), but am puzzled as to why the strobes won't fire manually? Suggestions - I'm sure I'm just being thick and in my excitement of having a new toy am missing something.

Steve

Nightmare..just taken everything apart and found that BOTH nikonos connectors on the bulkhead have flooded...no idea why...pushed the plugs in as normal, tightened the screw threads of the casing to normal tightness (as I do for every dive)..yet when I have just disconnected them out floods a shed load of water...the Ikelite connectors into the strobes were fine (as they've always been). Now maybe I have missed putting in an O-ring somewhere??

Damn..but this is a second issue..the damn thing didnt fire even on land before I took it into the pool for testing......

Have now tested the strobes (fine) and the cables (blue cord non-ttl) with the old trusty paperclip and the strobes fire fine...so now working back to the hotshoe hopefully, once the connector ports are dry, then back to the camera itself...

Well...I sorted it...hotshoe problem...the seating might have been out a mm or so, it was tightened up so not sure there was a problem with the physical connection of whatever was connected. Long and short of it is that the sytsem now works fine....just need to figure why the Nikonos bulkhead connectors flooded now....sigh....its nealry midnight so will worry about that tomorrow. As I read in a post I googled a while back -"most problems are due to the hotshoe"..never a truer word spoken at present.

Wierd..I'm writing and answereing my own thread but thanks for the message and advice Manatee!

I got a hotshoe once for a Subal that I believe was missing a spring? Replaced it with a backup hot shoe and never gave me a problem.

I had Ikelite bulkheads installed on my Subal housings. Never had a problem with them. Before that had intermittent problems with Nikonos bulkheads going back to the Nikonos IV. Sometimes the O rings for Ikelite Nikonos bulkhead strobes get changed for Nikonos O rings. This can lead to troubles. Make sure you have Ikelite O rings. on your Ikelite synch cords.

Never had water poor out of a flooded bulkhead. Usually you see just a little corrosion and the strobe won't work correctly. Almost have to guess that the bulkhead flooded. So might be something more wrong than just the seating of the O ring.

Well...I sorted it...hotshoe problem...the seating might have been out a mm or so, it was tightened up so not sure there was a problem with the physical connection of whatever was connected. Long and short of it is that the sytsem now works fine....just need to figure why the Nikonos bulkhead connectors flooded now....sigh....its nealry midnight so will worry about that tomorrow. As I read in a post I googled a while back -"most problems are due to the hotshoe"..never a truer word spoken at present.

 

Wierd..I'm writing and answereing my own thread but thanks for the message and advice Manatee!

As for the bulkhead/o-ring issue: Always us Ike's grease on their o-rings and Nexus grease on their o-rings.... might have been a swelled or twisted o-ring.

M

As for the bulkhead/o-ring issue: Always us Ike's grease on their o-rings and Nexus grease on their o-rings.... might have been a swelled or twisted o-ring.

 

M

Hey - I finally figured out the issues and it wasn't obvious (to me at first glance).

I had inserted the Nikonos plugs into the sockets on the Nexus bulkhead and screwed them in in time honored fashion, just as I have done with my DS-125s and my old Helix strobe many years before that. BUT I now understand that the Nikonos plugs are made from Teflon (soft) and I hadn't inserted the O-ring fully into the socket before screwing in. I had assumed (incorrectly) that screwing the collar tight would keep everything watertight. WRONG. They flooded.

Even if the O ring is not seated correctly, the collar will still screw down, yet it distorts and strips some of the thread, allowing water ingress. The softness of the polymer is no match for the strength of my tightening.

I have now found out that rotating the screw thread counter clockwise until the thread "clicks" then screwing in clockwise gives me a totally different "feel" - virtually resistance free - compared with what I had done earlier (an by no means had I physically forced a cross-threaded screw into place - quite the opposite). Its chalk and cheese.

I now see the 2 small holes in the sockets on the Nexus housing and am using these to allow me to check the O ring is fully seated, then use the reverse twist technique to ensure proper screwthread connection, wiggling the plug slightly to ensure a good seating. The holes also allow for me to blow out any water post-dive before unscrewing the plugs (with the housing titled down to avoid any water running back into the socket or getting into the pin holes).

The second issue is actually totally unrelated to flooding of the sockets yet also causes non-firing of the strobes. The hotshoe connector needs to be inserted and twisted/rotated ever so slightly to ensure a good connection. It may be that the connector I have has been manufactured incorrectly in which case I'll get it replaced, but its a very very small amount of movement before tightening the retaining ring that is needed to ensure consistent strobe firing. At least I now have two specifics sorted before my Sipadan trip in 2 weeks.

Just hope the fish turn up.

Steve